


Tinker Tavern Road

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-06
Updated: 2010-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's healing; they stop in the middle of nowhere</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tinker Tavern Road

**Author's Note:**

> For "nurse back to health" for schmoopbingo.

Sam gets off at the exit for Tinker Tavern Road. A few miles from the highway he pulls up at the edge of a small field of corn, tall and flickering with shadows in the August sun. There’s no sign of tinkers or taverns. It’s the middle of lightly cultivated nowhere.

“Why’ve we stopped? Did you break the car? Are we lost?” Dean’s muzzy voice from the back. The engine’s silence always wakes him, even dosed into next week on pain killers.

Sam rummages in the glove compartment, counting out Vicodin and antibiotics.

“Yeah, that would be it, Dean. We’re stranded. The engine’s in flames. I could bring down one of the vultures with a slingshot. We could live on that for a bit.”

“Smartass,” Dean mumbles, “you’d better not’ve broken my car.” His voice is already fading back into sleep.

“Hey, stay with me a sec, it’s time for your meds,” says Sam. _Talk to me. Be annoying. Be alive._ He gets out, grabs a yogurt shake (the things he does to Dean when he has him at his mercy) from the cooler, and opens the back door by Dean’s head. The pillow has fallen into the seat-well, and Dean’s face is wedged uncomfortably against the back.

Sam flips up Dean’s shirt to check the stitches. Ragged pink lines over purple bruising, still a lot prettier than almost disemboweled. The angry red has faded at last. Two infections at the hospital, but the vibrations of the Impala are doing the trick. He’s healing.

Sam sits Dean up, and he swallows the pills and even the yogurt shake. “D’you need to piss?” Sam asks, and Dean says “Probably be a good idea.”

They’re past the stage of peeing into a bottle, thank God. Sam walks Dean the three steps to a tree. It works better if Dean holds onto Sam while Sam gets him out and tucks him away again when he’s done. It’s not like they have boundaries. They brush their teeth together, just like when they were kids. They bleed so casually for each other.

When Dean settles bank against the rearranged pillow he’s white with a tinge of green, sweat in fat beads on his forehead. Sam sits down on the ground by the open car door, watching him, waiting for the hitch in his breathing to even out.

“Where are we, anyway?” Dean asks finally.

“Tinker Tavern Road. Not far from Syracuse.”

“What the fuck is on Tinker Tavern Road?”

“Nothing. I just liked the name.”

“You promising me taverns and not coming through? ‘S the middle of nowhere, Sammy.”

Sam rubs his fingers through the sweaty spikes of Dean’s hair. Dean doesn’t protest.

“They had to put tinkers’ taverns in the middle of nowhere,” Sam says. “The tinkers would all come out here with their pots and pans. Hundreds of them. They’d get drunk and they’d bang on the pots. You could hear it for miles.”

“Yeah?” says Dean.

“Yeah. They had hammers to bang with. Some of them had these huge cast iron skillets. Heavy metal.” Dean makes a sound that’s almost a snort. His eyes are closed again, and his breathing is slowing. Sam goes on lightly stroking his hair till he’s sure he’s asleep.

They have nowhere to be. They can’t be late or lost. Sam leans his head carefully against Dean’s shoulder, stretches his legs out on the gravel, baking in the sun. In the back of his mind he hears corn growing, ants in the grass, Dean’s torn skin and muscle knitting. 


End file.
